GraphQL - Introduction
GraphQL is a query language used to simplify the process of data
fetching in applications.
It replaces REST as an API design
paradigm and is becoming the new standard for exposing the data and
functionality of a server.
It is an execution engine and a
data query language.
History :
GraphQL is a declarative data
fetching specification and query language that was created at
Facebook in 2012. It was invented to help Facebook deal with the data
fetching challenges that were arising in their native mobile app
projects. They needed a way to get data from the server to the client. After
use in production for all of Facebook's mobile apps for years, Facebook
open sourced GraphQL in 2015. GraphQL is often talked about as being part of
React or the larger Javascript ecosystem. Though it lends itself well to
loading data into React components, GraphQL is just a query
language. It's not opinionated about what programming language you
use to implement a graph server. Today GraphQL is used by
companies like Pinterest, Intuit, Coursera, GitHub, and Shopify, and
it's gaining popularity due to the ease of use and the performance
benefits.
Prerequisites :
Knowledge of REST API is
required. Language of REST to compare and contrast data fetching in both ways.
We're going to be using the
GitHub GraphQL API so a GitHub account will be a must-have for this
class. You don't have to know anything about Git or GitHub at
all, this will just be used to explore the GitHub API.